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As you can see from the box, we got the black one. Rumor has it the white iPhones are out there, but as rare as an albino whale. This iPhone cost us $979 NZ without a contract (but locked to Vodafone, of course). Not sure what we're going to do with a Vodafone-locked iPhone in California, but we'll figure something out.

The packaging looks familiar...

All right, here's the specs we know up-front:

The iPhone 3G is 4.5x2.4x0.48" (0.02" thicker than the original iPhone), and weighs 4.7 ounces (0.1 ounce less). For reference, this is approximately the weight of two unladen swallows.

With its new rounded back, the new iPhone feels smaller. Calculating the phone's volume won't be easy mathematically, and measuring the phone's displacement the easy way probably isn't a good idea.

The display is 3.5" diagonal, 480x320 resolution for 163ppi. Also known as identical to the iPhone (not that we're complaining).

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Apple used orange stickers to number the connectors to the logic board 1 through 6.

The camera is located in the upper right corner of the phone. Unfortunately, it connects to the bottom of the logic board, meaning you'll likely need to remove the logic board from the phone to remove the camera. We haven't tried removing the camera, but would assume that like the original phone, the camera can be removed for those wanting to bring their iPhone 3G into secure locations.

A little birdy has told me that TechOnline will be decapping the chips we can't identify tomorrow, after the US release. They soak the chip in an acid bath to eat away the ceramic coating, then use x-rays and other fancy equipment to examine it.

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In a significant departure from the first iPhone, it appears that the LCD and glass covering are separate components-- just like the iPod Touch. They were glued together before, making replacement screens very expensive. The glass breaks more than anything else, so this is great news for repairing the iPhone 3G!

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We had to remove 6 Phillips #00 screws to separate the glass from the LCD.

The glass (with integrated touch sensors and chips) is underneath, while the LCD is being removed.

In the previous iPhone, the display was fairly monolithic. A number of components were connected together via the display assembly-- now the display just connects to the main board. Hopefully this will make obtaining replacement parts easier-- we've had trouble getting quality supplies of iPhone displays to sell.

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The two boards (logic and communications) are now one. Rather than stacking them, as in the last model, they laid it out along the entire length. We're guessing this allowed them to make the battery longer.

We're not used to taking photos outside our studio, but these pictures are turning out great because of our awesome friends in NZ.

Props to Andrei Smirnov of Mac Solutions for helping us out. They are a Macintosh sales and support company established in 1998 and based on the North Shore, Auckland. Do us a favor and use his services the next time you're in Auckland!

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Once we get the phone completely apart, we'll start posting chip numbers. We'd love help identifying chips from all of you, send us any inside information to iphone3g@ifixit.com. We'll keep it anonymous.

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This is where we get excited! We've done our best to identify everything that's on the iPhone board.

Semiconductor Insights and TechOnline have released the almost-authoritative list of all substantial iPhone chips. They've graciously provided us with their images. We're going through and verifying their results now, but we expect that their accuracy will surpass our own.

So by our count, here's the chip counts by manufacturer (more important chips are bold):

The chip in the top middle is SMP 3i 6820, Infineon SM-Power3i. From Infineon: the part is "optimized to support modem and data card applications based upon X-GOLD208 and X-GOLD 608, with features ranging from EDGE up to 3G and HSDPA."

Chips we need to identify: 6475 with M logo (rumored to be Murata IF SAW Filter).

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The 8GB NAND flash chip (Toshiba TH58NVG6D1DTG80), revealed after removing a soldered-down cover. This chip was covered by a plastic shield as well, which we've partially removed to see the markings beneath.

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The three chips along the bottom are TriQuint Tritium PA-duplexers: TQM616035 TQM676031 TQM666032. Presumably each one works on a different frequency band: "Each highly-integrated module contains a Tx input filter, a linear Power Amplifier, Duplexer, and Coupler."

This is a big win for TriQuint! Their stock has been doing a bit better since we discovered this.

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The recycle marker on the battery is blacked out with a sharpie. Suspicious...

We were all expecting a bigger battery, and I can't verify this, but this page references the part number on the battery and lists a capacity of 1150 mAh, not the 1400 mAh in the original. Can anyone dig up more information?

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